Catholic san Franci Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper
Parish secretaries: ‘No such thing as a typical day’ “Secretary” doesn’t even begin to describe the function the women (and a few men) carry out for our parishes. Some have formal titles: office administrator, manager, pastoral associate. More informally, they are the gatekeepers — the people who often keep the parish running smoothly. These are the people who answer the phone, are the first to hear that a beloved parishioner has passed on, the first to give comfort; the first to hear that a young woman is to be married and will set the appointment for the couple’s first visit with the priest; the first to hear the joy in a new parents’ voice as they arrange for their baby’s baptism. They make appointments for parishioners who ask the priest to make a sick call, and in the process often hear the sadness or panic in the parishioner’s voice. They are often the friendly and compassionate stranger on the phone welcoming a newcomer to the parish. They are the persons who must immediately decide what priority to give a call and must arrange the daily crises into the calendar of events. The parish secretary is also the “house mother”— the one who answers the door when a child runs over from the school to deliver a message or papers from the school. (When I was a kid, it was our beloved, red-haired Dorothy Player at St. Emydius.) They often become the watchful “niece,” looking out for the retired priest who resides in the rectory, and for whom the secretary will run to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions on her lunch break, and make sure he has some hot soup for lunch on a cold day. The functions of the this job can be long — bookkeeping, filing, typing, producing the parish bulletin, PARISH SECRETARIES, page 19
(PHOTO BY TOM BURKE/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)
By Mary Schembri
St. Paul Parish, San Francisco, invited parish secretaries and other parish administrative staff from San Francisco’s Deanery Five to lunch April 22. In a prayer before the meal, St. Paul pastor Father Mario Farana called the workers “the first line of defense and offense” at the parish and often a major element of its “backbone.” The event commemorated Administrative Professionals Week. Joining Father Farana on steps of St. Paul rectory clockwise from left: Ruth Tortorelli, St. Paul; Elsie Foley, St. Anthony; Elizabeth Dekle, St. Philip; Judy De Latorre, St. John the Evangelist; Katy O’Shea and Winifred Anderson, St. Paul; Jeannette Saccheri, St. Peter; Marie Annuzzi, St. Kevin; Alba Canelo, St. Anthony; Denise Kahn, Mission Dolores. Saccheri has served at St. Peter for 43 years. Annuzzi, a lifelong member of St. Kevin, said with a laugh, “I’m as old as the parish church. We were both born in 1925.” She has served full-time as parish secretary for 41 years. Unable to attend were Irma Bonilla, St. Paul; Marcia Ruiz, St. Charles; Pat Mann, St. James.
Bay Area Burmese react to cyclone tragedy
Ordination candidates Rev. Mr. Ghislain Bazikila, left, and Rev. Mr. Juan Lopez pose outside St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park. Lopez will be ordained for the Archdiocese of San Francisco at St. Mary’s Cathedral on June 7. The Mass begins at 10 a.m. Bazikila obtained special permission from Archbishop George Niederauer to be ordained in his native Republic of Congo June 21 because his father is too ill to travel.
By Michael Vick Relief efforts to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar have not been able to keep up with the humanitarian crisis on the ground, report two Bay Area persons well informed on the crisis. “Everything is in chaos,” Felix Chin, president of the Daly City-based Myanmar Community USA, Inc., told Catholic San Francisco. His aunts still live in the former capital city, Yangon. “All the trees have fallen down, the streets are flooded and people have nowhere to go,” Chin said. Outlying suburbs and rural areas took the brunt of Cyclone Nargis, which made landfall on May 2. Burma, called Myanmar by the country’s ruling military government, already faced serious infrastructure problems, now exacerbated by the storm. “The people living in those villages do not have houses like we have in the United States,” said Chin, who was born in Burma in 1943 and emigrated to the United States in 1978. “They are living in huts. They can’t withstand 120-mile-an-hour winds. They’re blown away.” At least 63,000 people have perished since the cyclone CYCLONE NARGIS, page 8
(CNS PHOTO/REUTERS)
(PHOTO BY MICHAEL VICK/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)
Ordinations planned for June
Family members sit in their home destroyed by Cyclone Nargis in Bogalay, southwest of Yangon, Myanmar, May 8.
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION Bishops’ June agenda . . . . . . 5 Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Ministry Summit: leadership studied ~ Page 6 ~ May 16, 2008
Area church groups face disaster prep ~ Page 9 ~
Passing on the faith: St. Pius X Awards ~ Page 16 ~
SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS
Catholic Bestsellers . . . . . . 21 Classified ads . . . . . . . . 22-23
www.catholic-sf.org VOLUME 10
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